The official Korean
Central News Agency also accused Seoul of using the defection of Thae Yong Ho,
formerly a minister at the North Korean Embassy in London, for propaganda aimed
at insulting the North Korean leadership. It also denounced the British
government for ignoring international protocol by rejecting what it said were
demands to have Thae extradited back to the North and instead handing him over
to the South.
KCNA said North
Korea had ordered Thae to return to the North in June to be investigated for a
series of crimes, including embezzling government funds, leaking confidential
secrets and sexually assaulting a minor.
It said that Thae "should have received legal punishment for the crimes he committed, but he discarded the fatherland that raised him and even his own parents and brothers by fleeing, thinking nothing but just saving himself, showing himself to be human scum who lacks even an elementary level of loyalty and even tiny bits of conscience and morality that are required for human beings."
In announcing the
defection, Seoul's Unification Ministry said Wednesday that Thae was the
second-highest North Korean official at the embassy and the most senior North
Korean diplomat ever to defect to South Korea. In 1997, the North Korean
ambassador to Egypt fled but resettled in the United States.
The ministry said
that Thae decided to defect because of his disgust with the government of North
Korean leader Kim Jong Un, his yearning for South Korean democracy and worries
about the future of his children.
The Unification
Ministry didn't immediately respond to a request for comment about North
Korea's claims on Saturday.
More than 29,000
North Koreans have defected to South Korea since the end of the 1950-53 Korean
War, according to the South Korean government. Many defectors have said they
wanted to leave North Korea's harsh political system and poverty. Pyongyang
often accuses the South of deceiving or paying its citizens to defect, or
claims that they have simply been kidnapped.
In April, 13 North
Koreans working at a North Korean-operated restaurant in China defected to
South Korea. It was the largest group defection since Kim took power in late
2011. Later in April, South Korea also revealed that a colonel in North Korea's
military spy agency had defected to the South last year.
Most South Korean
analysts say it's premature to take the defections of Thae and other senior officials
as indicators that the unity of North Korea's ruling elite is starting to crack
because there are no significant signs that Kim's grip on power is weakening.
South Korea doesn't always make high-level defection cases public. Its announcement of Thae's defection came with ties between the rivals at one of their lowest points in decades following the North's nuclear test and long-range rocket launch earlier this year.
North Korea recently
has expressed anger at a U.S. plan to place an advanced missile defense system
in South Korea. The North has warned of unspecified retaliation and fired
several missiles into the sea earlier this month.
Fox news
Follow Solenzo Blog on
0 Comments